Acceptable Losses
by Fortyfive stars
Summary: PostDMC, not spoilerish. Jack takes a good look at his actions and doesn't like what he finds. Sparrington, somewhat preslash.A bit angsty.


**Title**: Acceptable Losses  
**Pairing**: Sparrington  
**Author**: empressizzy (on livejournal) or Fortyfive Stars (on **A/N**: Written for the Sparrington fest at Scruffylove, livejournal.  
Heavily influenced by the song _Acceptable Losses_ by _Lisa Miskovsky_. Prompts used:  
Single Word Prompts: #32 Deceit,  
Phrase prompts: #48 Only James can make it right.  
**Disclaimer**: The mighty rodent empire owns it all.

* * *

"An' then she said, 'luv, I knows ya'rs from the country and all, but that's the cat'!"

No one laughed but Jack, his broad grin slowly extinguishing in the silence. There  
was no one there to laugh with, after all.

The _Black Pearl_ lay for anchor in a little, sheltered bay just off the island La Virgen,  
one of the many relatively unknown islands on the outskirts of the Caribbean archipelago.

Logically Jack knew that his crew needed a rest, both from the hard work and the oddities  
of a captain that appeared to grow more excentric with every passing day. But he was of a  
mind to celebrate –he often was these days- and they'd bloody left him alone.

"Left me bloody on my onesie wiv a bloody bottle of rum. Buggers."

The Pearl lurked reproachfully under his feet and he sighed. Of all the idiot things…

"Awright, pardon the french m'lady. Ye're a fine lass, I knows."

Sharing the night with the Pearl and the bottle would normally have seemed to be  
the finest evening prospect anyone could dream up. The problem with this situation  
had been small, hell, nonexistant, up until a few months ago.

Jack squirmed uncomfortably under the familiar train of thoughts, and fortified himself  
with the choice liquor at hand. He wove from the quarter deck to the main mast,  
through some divine intervention not pitching himself overboard, and flopped down on deck.

It wasn't that Jack lacked for admirers, females and males alike. Hell, he was himself  
his most devoted and ardent admirer. But lately… the things he had enjoyed before  
appeared dissatisfyingly... hollow. Tonight he was of a mind to find out what was slowly  
eating away at him and exorcise it.

He had always loved two things in this world, and mostly those two things alone had loved him.  
Freedom and pride. The Pearl, bless her sleek black hull, was the very epitome of both,  
as proud and untamed as her captain. They made a good match, he and his lass, although  
occasionally they might as well have starred in a greece tragedy for all the times they'd been  
forcefully separated and fought their way back to each other's sides.

Well, Jack had, at least.

Having a ship for your kindred spirit was admittedly troublesome every now and then.

A small shiver of pleasure traversed his body as the rum thrummed deliciously  
through his veins.

He had his ship back, for good this time with Davy Jones off his back, and he intended  
to keep her. Nothing stood between him and the horizon now.

The thought chafed at him and he turned it over in his mind like his nimble thieving fingers  
would tumble a string of coins and palm them away. Examining it from this way and that.

The dream of the far horizon had lost its appeal, rusting now that it was no longer an  
unattainable idea but rather a voyage on the brim of taking place. Why?

He had laboured so hard for it to come true. Everything he had done he had done for this –  
and because of that everything had been acceptable losses.

Was it the things he was leaving behind?

That, he assumed, would be Will and Elizabeth then. Not that any of them were actually  
talking to him any more.

But they were just children. He was grateful to them for saving him, certainly,  
and for missing ole' Jack when he'd done that brief stint as dead—(his mind instinctively  
shied away from that black hole) and certainly he was very fond of them,  
but they didn't really have anything in common.

Yes, he'd betrayed Will to Davy Jones but at the time he hadn't really seen any other way out.  
He didn't like it, no one said that Jack _liked_ it and he would have _preferred_ to get them  
both out of it… and he probably **would've**, too… but who ever listened to what he said?

Jack accusingly stabbed a wavering finger at the night sky of cold, twinkling stars.

"Don't ye look at me like that, did what I had to for us all to live. Right fond of the boy,"  
he slurred angrily.

"Course I wouldna have left him there. Woulda given him a proper ending if'n I couldn't get him out."

A pirate's proper ending – a bullet through the temple, quick and merciful in the dark.

His jaws clenched momentarily.

Then Will went and got himself out and then he didn't have to do anything at all,  
so they were all good, right?

He sighed. The way he saw it God had given every man the permission to do  
what he had to in order to find his heart's desire (the compass appeared to twitch  
at his side now that his thoughts brushed it).

You did what you had to and expected everyone else to do the same. Tear apart, burn down,  
sack a town without a single shot fired – it was all in the game.

Elizabeth, right bonny lass that. So thrifty. Will.

Well. Acceptable losses.

Jack felt like he had been plunged into a dark place in his mind lately, the shadows  
were ever growing taller around him. What ailed him?

Fatigue? The sudden emptiness of achieving his goal? The knowledge of his betrayal?

No, he could live with that. He could. Captain Jack Sparrow had no illusions about himself  
–he knew he was a good pirate- and was always rather surprised when others had.

And because Jack Sparrow himself was so sure of his good nature no one really thought to doubt it.

But a pirate was a pirate, and they did what they had to. So it was all acceptable losses, all good.

He thoughtfully stroked the deck beneath him. It was worn but the wood was sturdy and  
somewhat warm, like it had an innate temperature of its own. A delicate fragrance  
stroked his senses, a fragile scent amidst tar and salt. The first signs of spring  
had come creeping down the hills.

Jack rolled over to splay out on the deck. His cheekbone felt sharp against the unrelenting wood.  
Worn wood. Scrubbed worn. A man scrubbing.

Jade eyes flashed in his mind, a sudden string of green pearls. On his knees,  
scrubbing this very deck with his humiliation and heart-tearing angst.

Might as well have licked the deck clean, Jack thought to himself, as using that wig.  
Mentally the abasement was the same.

Suddenly Jack felt stupid. In a rare moment of doubt he admitted to himself  
that right here, right now, he was only an old man with too many dreams broken by himself,  
and too much rum in his belly. Aching joints. Gold teeth. Eyes damaged by  
long years of squinting into the sun glinting off the waves. Scars. An atrophied heart.

His dreams. Was this all that he had to show for it?

No. A newly reinstated commodore that hated him more than anything now.

He should have protected him from his crew, Jack knew. It was easy to see that  
in retrospect.

But… he grit his teeth and forced himself to swallow. Acceptable Losses.

Nothing had really changed, he told himself and snuggled those words closer like a blanket.  
The fighting at the bars still drew wired, vengeful crowds, the sails still bellied out before the wind  
and he was still chasing the horizon.

Jack's knowledge that he had burned all the bridges was euphoric, a giddy  
spiraling sensation. Because it was so tempting to go sauntering through Port Royal  
now that it was dangerous territory, to measure himself against the circumstances  
and come out on top in brilliance and glory. Dance another jig with death.

The Turners would drink to his hanging.

Should he stay away knowing that his former protectors would be the first  
to call for his blood? It only made it more exciting. He knew himself too well  
to believe he'd ever call it quits or know when to leave well enough alone.

His own death? Acceptable losses.

_A cynical voice, fingers trembling like leaves. Abstinence could do that to a man  
when he had been constantly under the influence of drink for months, wracking his  
body with a shaking like palsy._

_Jack had ordered him lodged in the captain's own bed, practically isolating him with  
the captain in case it turned out to be something contagious instead of just rum fever._

_Exploring his face with the soft pads of his fingers, pressing the heels of his hand into  
the sore muscles and massaging them into compliance. Dripping water into James'  
mouth with a wet rag. James has soft, yielding lips, soft and wet but chapped. Drying  
the wig and giving it a new ribbon before tucking it away securely in a sea chest._

Acceptable losses? He chuffed out a low laugh and tossed back the bottle. The rum slid down his throat  
like thick, sweet molass, nectar of heaven, and washed away the nagging, battered  
thought that there were some things, yes, some things that deserved better than to  
be bartered away.


End file.
